Duty. What is that, but an anchor? Caneo drinks in the word without answering. He recalls a tale like this, recalls others who spoke of love like chains, and at his heart he recoils from such an idea. To be trapped, to owe – what kind of good is that? The silver boy nods, but as he does a thought occurs, and those wide, pale eyes skim quickly up to Roland’s face. “Are you not happy?” Perhaps he has no business worrying, but the tip of his tail dances anxiously behind him. Is that all it means to be with others? Sacrifice? He thinks, not for the first time – not for the last – of a sharp smell on the air, of the moon like a sickle hanging poised over tiny black waves.

        He imagines himself running.

        Perhaps that is why he takes so sharply to the girl – she seems to be a girl, soft – when she does appear. He follows the subtle movement of Roland’s body, brought now between himself and the narrow, two-legged thing, and such a stance rings like alarm bells in his head. Caneo’s nostrils flare, sucking in the bitter salt air, and his ears twitch, as if to shake off the creaking voices of the gulls and drink her in, divine her every motive for approaching them.

        Or perhaps he merely wonders how fast she is. He thinks, not very.

        She speaks again in that soft voice like wind running over the rocks, and he peers at her solemnly. Roland’s voice has rolled between them, low and firm, giving answer to her inquiry but nothing more. It sets the tone for Caneo’s mood, and he shifts a little, sidling from behind the thief to nearly beside. He is, for all his fear, a child no more – he stands higher than both. He stands quietly, however, graceful and without threat, his ears cupped toward the sound of her words. The sea has cursed me. That, of course, Caneo might believe – he casts an untrusting eye on the play of the waves. But she says something else, afterward, and the words ring foreign on his ears. A curse? A blessing? Or perhaps... her name?

        Caneo’s face leans forward, and slowly tilts to one side. He reads no threat in her, though he still watches from far out, his body taut as ropes. She makes a strange move downward and it might be in submission, or acknowledgement. Slowly, slowly he mirrors it with the tiniest nod of his own. When she asks another question, his gaze flicks briefly to Roland before it turns up the beach. He thinks, perhaps she would lure them to the trees and devour them, but his legs are still fast in the shade, and if she is alone... He blinks at her, at her naked skin and her thin, delicate limbs. How easily such a thing might be torn apart.

        “A grove of trees,” he offers quietly. His tail moves uncertainly behind him, belying any peace on the low voice. With a graceful motion, the tiny curve of his horn thrusts inland. “Are you lost from your herd?” He helped someone else once, long ago, find a mother lost. He thinks perhaps he could help this one, if she is not dangerous. His thoughts flit uncertainly between fear and interest.